Apartment tower rises atop Block 37

Courtesy Solomon Cordwell Buenz

CIM Group announced that it has secured its initial permits for the construction of a 34-story, 690-unit apartment tower above Block Thirty Seven, the existing five-level, 275,000-square-foot shopping, dining, and entertainment destination located in Chicago's Loop.

CIM Group announced that it has secured its initial permits for the construction of a 34-story, 690-unit apartment tower above Block Thirty Seven, the existing five-level, 275,000-square-foot shopping, dining, and entertainment destination located in Chicago's Loop. (Courtesy Solomon Cordwell Buenz)

Block 37's long-awaited residential project got an official kickoff Wednesday afternoon as the developer announced plans to bring 690 apartment units to the heart of the Loop by summer 2016.

It will be the largest apartment tower in the Loop, according to Gail Lissner, a vice president at Appraisal Research Counselors.

The 34-story glass-walled tower, designed by Chicago-based architecture firm Solomon Cordwell Buenz, will be built atop the five-level enclosed mall on the Randolph Street side of Block 37, which is bounded by State, Washington, Dearborn and Randolph streets. Amenities include a fifth-floor with an outdoor pool and spa, plus a rooftop spa and fitness center.

Residents will be able to access the mall directly through an elevator without having to go outside.

It is a major development for the mall, bought by Los Angeles-based CIM Group in 2012, which suffered decades of setbacks as it changed hands several times and fell into foreclosure just after its 2009 opening.

"No other block has a history like Block 37 in the city of Chicago," Mayor Rahm Emanuel said, drawing chuckles, during the kickoff event in the mall pedway.

Several other recent deals also suggest the mall is turning a corner. AMC Theatres plans to bring an 11-screen dine-in movie theater to the vacant top floor in early 2016, and a Latin-themed food court called Latinicity, from chef Richard Sandoval, is expected to open in spring on the third floor. Block 37 also is set to add a new 5,000-square-foot restaurant and bar concept from the Lawless family, which operates The Gage and Acanto (formerly Henri) on Michigan Avenue, to the ground floor at Randolph and Dearborn streets.

Still, only about 52 percent of the retail space in the mall is leased, said Michael Regan, vice president of investments for CIM Group. When CIM bought the property, it was just under 30 percent leased. Regan said he expects the retail to be stabilized by the time the residential tower opens in 2016.

The apartment tower adds significantly to a swelling residential population in the Loop, beefing up its image as a place to live as well as work. The number of residential units in the Loop has nearly tripled, to a projected 14,331 this year, from 5,071 in 2000, according to Appraisal Research Counselors.

"It's tremendously important because Block 37 is a central location, a major retail force, and now it will contribute to the residential growth that is making the Loop a real 24/7 community," said Marty Stern, chairman of the Chicago Loop Alliance and executive vice president and managing director of U.S. Equities Realty.

Stern, who was part of a team that hired one of the early developers of Block 37, said one of the big ideas that allowed the residential project to go forward was to build the residential tower on top of the retail component in a separate phase, as opposed to prior plans that integrated residential, retail and hotel phases.

There are no longer plans to build a hotel.

The construction site has closed a parking lane and two traffic lanes along Randolph, leaving just one lane for cars. An additional lane will open in November.